IFi Zen Stream with Qobuz

Just the free version for now 

I’ll buy the $6 app but is it the useability that improves or sound quality ?

It seems clunky and laggy just to search.  Also the search bar itself requires perfect spelling, etc… which is challenging when discovering new music 

Yeah, search is not a Qobuz strength even on their website and I’ve mentioned it to them.  I get around the spelling issue by just typing in the name of the artist and then pull up their albums or songs in that area.   I didn’t notice any notable lag in searching when searching in the HD version, and although I’m not sure I think HD gives you more unlimited access to hi-res recordings.  I just saw several people having issues with the free version, so for 6 bucks I thought I’d just avoid the hassle. 

The free versions are meant to be used with their own streaming hardware like the Bridge II in the Directstream DAC's.  You need to use the $6 version to get the best results.  Still it will never be as good as one of the dedicated apps from companies like Aurender, Auralic, Lumin or Innuos.  It just does it's job in a workmanlike fashion and that is all.  Though not my favorite I've never had a problem getting it to do what I needed.  It's a "catch all" app just like Bubble for Android. 

As of today (12/23/2022), the free version, Mconnect Player Lite, is working smoothly with ifi ZS in the AIO mode on iphone for streaming music from Qobuz. It has most of features you need such as gapless play. If you need track sorting which I don’t really care for, go with Mconnect Player. The sound quality is really good, just a tad better than playing the files from SSD via USB but I am spliting the hair. Both are noticeably better than playing / steaming music out of MS-window PC / Macbook. I start streaming music from Qobuz from now on because of the SQ, convenience and grand selection of music of all genres. I think $120 per year is well worth it.

Note that, after you setup the ifi ZS player and Mconnect Player, for some reasons it may take a few hours (in my case) for ifi / iFi icon to eventually show up in the UPnP devives field. Just be patient.

Audirvana 2.2 works well UPnP with DLNA and should work well with the Zen Stream. I'm using it right now in my system but don't use the ZS.

I've heard the Zen Stream is tricky setting up as AIO (All In One) is the best way to get started. But I would give a shot to Audirvana 2.2 as that solution will get you hooked up with Qobuz pronto.

I like Qobuz and use it as the quality is consistently superb.